Tanya's Blog

I’m a light sleeper, so tend to wake up whenever I hear a noise  Last night was no exception, W went to the bathroom which woke me up and when he came back to bed I heard this rustling noise.  Now normally W sleeps through the noises I hear, I’m slightly paranoid about nocturnal sounds, having been broken into twice (the first time when I was in the house, fortunately that night Jessica and Tamsyn had stayed over at my Mom’s – long story really but did end up with me chasing them out the house).  So hearing the noise immediately made me suspect that someone had somehow got into the house. W went to investigate, have to say any self respecting thief might be somewhat put off by being confronted with a tall skinny naked dude.  Turns out there wasn’t anyone in the house.  Settling back down, with a heart still racing, I hear the noises start up again – only this time there is more than just rustling, now there are bottles tinkling and tins scraping. The sounds definitely were coming from J’s bedroom.  So I sent W off again to investigate, and I peered out the window to see if I could see anything.  Nothing.  It is now 1:10 in the morning and having checked twice there is no-one else in the house other than W and I, I then lay awake for what seemed like ages listening to the various rustling, tinkling and scraping noises till I eventually fell asleep.  We did postulate that perhaps some animal was getting into the rubbish. This morning I went to investigate the potential mess and found one black bag with some of its contents spilt onto the carport floor.  Didn’t seem too bad, the significance of there being only one black bag didn’t register until W looked under the house.  Whatever animal it was had managed to drag a full black bag under the house!  We’re talking a BIG black bag full of a week’s worth of wine bottles (erhum), rubbish and the dregs of suppers gone by.

To say I’m freaked out is somewhat of an understatement.  Seriously what kind of an animal drags a black bag under a house! To put it in perspective, I live in a park home which has been added on to, the addition has a gap of about a ruler’s length between the ground and the underside of the ‘house’. 

We’re semi-convinced it might be a porcupine.  A few years back I saw one walking up my parent’s street, they live in the older part of Kommetjie.  The lady next door to me also mentioned awhile back that she thought porcupines were tucking into her vegetable garden. It definitely wasn’t a cat or dog, they don’t do that.  I’ve come to the conclusion living in Africa is fraught with danger. (*straight face*) I’m also happy to say we’re not sleeping at home tonight (plans already made before the monster under the house appeared), not sure I could survive another night of noises knowing that whatever it is, is not only big enough to drag a black bag under the house, but is right underneath me!!!

Damn freaky.

Take one culinary challenged wife, one recipe taken off husband’s website and the rash statement ‘shall I start supper?’ and you get….. a curry to die for, literally.  Alright, so not literally, no-one died, except perhaps a few taste buds here and there, and who really needs all their tastebuds these days?  The thing is, I follow recipes to the letter.  If it says a teaspoon of oil, I’ll measure a teaspoon of oil.  Recipes that have ‘a dash of’ or ‘a pinch of’ or ‘to taste’ floor me completely.  So when one says ‘I lean towards using Cayenne Pepper’ – I leant, actually W reckons I dove right in.  Well what does ‘lean towards’ mean anyway when cooking, and another prize direction… cook till brown.  Which is where he found me when he got home.  Staring into the pot wondering if brown meant, light brown, or perhaps medium brown or that ‘this is almost black’ brown.  Turns out I put a smidge too much cayenne pepper on the chicken, made for an interesting ‘gonna need a gallon of milk with this’ supper.

from the in-laws (having invited ourselves to lunch) I played with the camera a little and took this shot of the sunset.  Pretty, huh? 

 

[btw lunch was damn fine too, I’ve never had waterblommetjie bredie before. That’s what happens when you take an English gal and an Afrikaans boy and merge… you get to taste food you’ve never heard of before, let alone can pronounce :-) ]

This time in Paarl, hosted by the Wynland Gym Club. It included the two top gymnastics clubs in the Western Cape, ACS and Wynland.  Let me tell you, those girls are *good*, seriously good. The Judges were merciless with their marking, I guess they’re trying to prepare the gymnasts for the Western Province try outs, coming soon in August. Despite all of this Tamsyn still managed to place 6th overall, which puts her in the top 10 in the Western Province.  She came 4th in floor (her best ‘apparatus’), 5th in bar – which considering the coach hadn’t been teaching them entirely the right routine, is pretty good. Beam and Vault weren’t so great, still she got a gold medal. We’re very proud of her. I’m also rather proud of myself, I drove all the way there and didn’t get lost, ok on the way back I kind of took a detour and found my way onto the N1 via Klapmuts. Driving routes I’ve never been before and in the dark is always interesting for me.

(my pictures aren’t really very good this time, always difficult to get a good shot when you’re far away from the subject and the lighting isn’t great).

I know I said my last post was my last post today, but I had to write about this.  School raffles – bane of my life, I despise them, actually it is more like an all consuming hatred of them.  There is nothing worse (ok, I’m sure there are a lot worse things, but for the purpose of this post there is nothing worse) than being accosted by some small child going ‘want to buy a raffle ticket?’ looking up at you with those ‘you can save the world’ trusting eyes.  It’s exploitation, I tell you!  I also refuse to send my kids door to door begging for money, so whenever a raffle form comes home, I fill out half of it and send them back.  The latest form to come home collecting for something or other (can’t remember what) had the first prize being a membership to the local Fish Hoek gym, the 2nd prize *also* being a membership to the local Fish Hoek gym and the third prize being some sort of sports takkie.  I duly filled out half of Jessica’s and half of Tamsyn’s and packed them off to school.  What happens?  I bloody win the prize for the membership to the gym!  Someone somewhere is laughing at me right now, why I couldn’t have won *any* of the million other raffles that have come my way is beyond me.  A gym membership *grumble* I ask you.  (Stop giggling Wouter, it isn’t funny!!!)  ‘Course in order to redeem the 10 month (yes you read right 10 month) membership I have to pay R50 entrance fee.  Fat chance.  In case you haven’t gathered, I’m not big on exercise (shut up Wouter).